Frictionless commerce? A comparison of Internet and conventional retailers

here have been many claims that the Internet represents a new nearly "frict ionless market." Our research empirically analyzes the characteristics of t he Internet as a channel for two categories of homogeneous products-books a nd CDs. Using a data set of over 8,500 price observations collected over a period of 15 months, we compare pricing behavior at 41 Internet and convent ional retail outlets. We find that prices on the Internet are 9-16% lower than prices in conventi onal outlets, depending on whether taxes, shipping, and shopping costs are included in the price. Additionally, we find that Internet retailers' price adjustments over time are up to 100 times smaller than conventional retail ers' price adjustments-presumably reflecting lower menu costs in Internet c hannels. We also find that levels of price dispersion depend importantly on the measures employed. When we compare the prices posted by different Inte rnet retailers we find substantial dispersion. Internet retailer prices dif fer by an average of 33% for books and 25% for CDs. However, when we weight these prices by proxies for market share, we find dispersion is lower in I nternet channels than in conventional channels, reflecting the dominance of certain heavily branded retailers. We conclude that while there is lower friction in many dimensions of Intern et competition, branding, awareness, and trust remain important sources of heterogeneity among Internet retailers.